


I See the Signs of a Lifetime, You ‘Til I Die

by venablemayfairgoode



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Insecurity, Mutual Pining, Romance, Self-Doubt, one oblivious idiot and her supreme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29441565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venablemayfairgoode/pseuds/venablemayfairgoode
Summary: A clueless idiot thinks she's undeserving. It's up to her Supreme to prove her wrong.
Relationships: Cordelia Foxx | Cordelia Goode/Original Female Character(s), Cordelia Foxx | Cordelia Goode/Reader
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	I See the Signs of a Lifetime, You ‘Til I Die

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first published fic and my first foray into the American Horror Story fandom. I've been in love with Sarah Paulson and her characters for a long time, but it took the nudging of someone special to me to finally get me to post. 
> 
> The title is from one of my favorite songs: “Don’t Delete the Kisses” by Wolf Alice.

She’s wearing black lace today. Black lace with a high collar that conceals the pale, tender flesh of her throat. You want to pull the fabric down with shaking hands, press your mouth against her skin, feel the thrum of her life beneath your lips. Your eyes linger like the spots in your vision when you’ve stared at the sun for too long.

She laughs suddenly, beautifully, sincerely, and you think your heart might combust right inside your chest. God, how you love her. Furiously and with every part of you. You want nothing more than to offer them to her. To get on your knees and hold them out like offerings to a goddess, but you know they are no good. They are worth nothing. It would be cruel to have her look upon the broken pieces and the ugly parts, to force sweet, kind, gentle Cordelia to throw them aside. In doing so, it would only serve to hurt her more than it would hurt you. 

An elbow nudges you in the side. 

Even though the action is gentle, you jerk as if you had been burned, turning to meet amused blue eyes. “Ya gonna keep starin’ at her, or finally do somethin’ about it?” Misty asks, leaning back against the counter behind you. Your arms brush and you absentmindedly lean into the contact. 

Your eyes roll at her words. “We’ve already had this discussion,” you say.

“No, we haven’t. Every time I try to talk to you, you run away.”

“I don’t _run_ _away_ ,” you insist under your breath. You resist the urge to look at the door, your fingertips tapping anxiously on the edge of the counter.

Misty shoots you a knowing look. “You were sayin’?”

You huff, turning your eyes downward and shrugging one shoulder like it’s no skin off your nose. Like Cordelia doesn’t have a permanent residence in your mind. Like your heart doesn’t beat in tune with hers. “She-” the lump forming in your throat catches the words in your mouth.

The secret must lie in your eyes because Misty wraps a hand under your chin, lifting your face so that your gazes can meet. “There ain’t nothin’ wrong with you, Y/N/N,” she murmurs, just low enough for you to hear. Her eyes are earnest. She’s telling the truth so why don’t you believe her? 

You’re suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to scream. You want to throw a tantrum just like the one you threw as a child from a broken home when you were told that your daddy wasn’t coming back and your mama didn’t want you and everything would be alright, but you need to quiet down now because the adults are talking. You want to scream just as you did when you were a child whose entire life had begun and ended in a hospital ward. You want to curl your hands into fists, stomp your feet into the floor, raise your face to the Heavens, and scream out as loud as your vocal cords will allow. There _is_ something wrong with you, Cordelia _does_ deserve better, and wanting to scream is better than not wanting to do anything at all. But you don’t say these things. Instead, like a moth drawn to a flame, you turn your head from Misty’s grip to meet Cordelia’s eyes and feel the scream die in your chest.

_How long has she been watching?_ A part of your mind wonders. The other part, the largest part, is too lost in her eyes to wonder anything at all. 

You can’t decipher the emotions there, but you want to. She glances at Misty then back to you before offering a smile. It is a sad smile, out of place on her lips. You can’t help but wonder how to make it real, how to make her face light up in the way you adore. When her nose crinkles and her eyes shine like the darkest embers of a sunrise. But before you can summon up the courage to do anything at all, you blink and she’s gone. You stare at the space where she had been and feel your heart deflate.

\--

That night, you gaze at your reflection in the coffeemaker. You don’t know how long you have been standing there, hands braced against the counter as the thoughts of inadequacy and yearning turn around and around in your mind, a meaningless haze that only serves to remind you of what you already know. She could never love you. Not the way you love her: with everything and always and no one else ever again. Just her. Always, always, always.

“Are you going to drink any of that, or is it purely for decoration?” A voice asks teasingly from the doorway, startling you from your inner monologue. 

You whirl around, your heart thudding in your ribcage. “Jesus, Delia,” you gasp, hand to your chest as it pounds.

She gives you an apologetic smile, the little one that forms when she’s faintly amused. “I’m sorry, Y/N,” she murmurs, not really sounding sorry at all. It’s late, the girls are asleep, and the moon shines like a spotlight through the kitchen window, but Cordelia is awake. Cordelia is here, in the kitchen, in that black lace dress with the skirt swishing delicately around her ankles as she steps further into the room.

“It’s okay,” you hear yourself say distantly. You look at her and you ache. God, how you ache for her. A sense of deja vu rushes over you as your eyes brush over the high collar of her dress. There’s a tiny black button just above her clavicle. A flick of your fingers and it would come free. The fabric would fall away and all you would have to do is- A gentle clearing of her throats grabs your attention, yanking you back to reality. You dart away like a spooked animal, heat gathering in your cheeks as you turn back around to your abandoned coffee. You don’t look into her face, too fearful of the expression you might find there.

There’s a brief pause. You can feel her eyes on your back; her presence behind you is nothing but a beacon to your weary heart. “Is everything alright?” she asks gently, concern lacing her voice just as you knew it would. Because Cordelia cares and loves and gives, no matter if she has anything left to offer. She is an angel and you are a street urchin, unloved and unwanted, insignificant and so very small where she is larger than life. She is your lighthouse at sea and you are the ship determined to crash into her shore even as she wards you away with beams of light and warnings as if to say, “Go, go on, you don’t belong here.” 

You clutch at your coffee cup, empty still, and will your heart to stop beating so damn loud lest she hears it. _“I can’t get you out of my head. Did you know that you live there? Do you know that I love you, love you, love you?”_ you think, but don’t say. “Just couldn’t sleep,” you mutter instead. 

“You know you can talk to me, right, sweetheart?” Cordelia’s voice is closer now, husky and warm like a late-night campfire. Your body erupts in goosebumps at the sound of it so close to your ear. Her presence is warm against you as her arm reaches over your shoulder to the cabinet door, the action causing her breasts to press into your shoulder blades. Long, slender fingers reach for a coffee cup and you watch them intensely, aching, always aching. “Sweetheart?” She probes gently. Her lips brush your ear. 

“I know,” you manage to whisper though the words come out shaky and you’re not sure the voice is your own. You will your body to move, but you are frozen in place. You are a statue at a museum for others to gawk and point at, for them to whisper around because you can’t tell anyone what they’re saying anyway. You are not a witch standing in the kitchen with your Supreme pressing you against the counter. You are not a girl hopelessly in love with the woman who saved her. You are not worthy. You are a statue.

A hand cups your cheek and turns your face so that you’re looking deeply into the most beautiful eyes of molten chocolate you have ever seen, and as they soften, as Cordelia looks at you like you are a seashell she found washed up along her shore, dirty and covered in sand but no less precious, you realize you might not be worthy in your eyes, but maybe you are worthy in hers. And for the first time since you met Cordelia and fell for her kind, sweet, beautiful nature, you feel hope bloom in your chest like the first flower in springtime. Just a sliver, but it is enough.

“I’m in love with you,” you whisper brokenly, uneven, trembling in her arms, the last leaf clinging to an autumn tree. _Will I fall?_ You wonder. _Will she catch me?_

“I know,” she whispers back, her voice equally soft. Her thumb glides along the apple of your cheek and you can feel the cold metal of her rings pressing into your skin. Her eyes are warm, so warm you feel like you’re drowning in them. They dart between yours, shining brightly in the darkness of the kitchen. The moonlight turns the blonde hair curling around her shoulders into a beautiful silver sheen. She is ethereal. God, how you love her. 

Her words finally register through the thick fog that currently surrounds your head. “You knew?” You stutter out, eyebrows pinching together as you search her face for a sign of disgust.

Cordelia nods, the corners of her mouth curling into a fond, loving smile. For you. “You’re not exactly subtle, sweetheart,” she teases, and a part of you relaxes because she knows you love her and she’s teasing you and her hands are still on your face and you hope, hope, hope. She tilts her head, searching your eyes, your heart, your soul. Her voice is tender, low, and loving when she speaks. “Did you know that I love you, Y/N?”

The breath knocks from your lungs and you’re left reeling, your eyes wide like a child’s. “What?”

“You heard me,” she responds simply. Her fingers curl around the back of your neck.

“But I’m not-” you begin to protest, but stop when her eyes harden, her eyebrows drawn together and determined. _Worthy. Important. Deserving._

“You are,” Cordelia insists, watching as tears form in your eyes. She tightens her grip, leans down to bring you eye to eye. “You are everything to me.” She presses her forehead against yours. You can feel her breath on your lips. “Everything.” 

Your heart does not ache. 

It _hopes._

Cordelia smells like the greenhouse, like flowers, like roses and daffodils and the sun, and you want to plant a seed in her heart so a tree can bloom from your love together. You reach up, hesitant, still trembling, and cup her face in your hands. Her cheeks are soft silk beneath your fingertips. She is porcelain but you know she will not break. “It’s okay,” she whispers against your mouth. “It’s okay.”

And then she kisses you.

Your heart is _alive._

Your eyelashes flutter closed as you press against her, her hold on you tight and solid. Her hands are gentle, so gentle, always gentle as they grab you by your waist and lift you onto the counter. The action causes you to gasp into her mouth, her tongue sliding between your lips. You whimper into the kiss, fisting your hands into her hair, pulling her closer so that you can feel all of her and nothing else. She pulls away to breathe, but doesn’t stop kissing you. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she murmurs against your mouth. Over and over again, once between each kiss she presses there, an offering for a goddess. For you.

“Show me,” you plead, your face wet with tears you don’t remember shedding. You clutch onto her like a lifeline as her lips find your cheek, your eyelids, your nose. You want to crawl into her heart and make a home there. Your mantra is a soft echo around the room: “Delia, Delia, _Delia_.”

Her hands cup your face tenderly. She looks into your eyes, her lips curling into your favorite smile. The one she reserves just for you and you wonder how you didn’t notice before. “Do you believe me now?” she asks.

A smile comes unbidden to your face. You can’t help it. Not with her looking at you like you are the world. “Yes.” Your breath shudders as it leaves your lips. You reach up, brush your nose along hers, your eyelashes fluttering as your lips graze. Your hands are shaking as you reach for the collar of her dress. With a flick of your fingers, you manage to undo the topmost button, the one right above her clavicle. You ease the material down her neck, your fingers gliding along her throat as more skin is revealed. She hums under her breath, the vibrations purring against your fingertips.

“I love you,” you whisper before you lean forward, press your mouth against her skin, and feel her life thrum beneath your lips.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on my Tumblr, so feel free to come hang out (@venablemayfairgoode)


End file.
